Mechanisms, Sources and Motives of Creative Activity in the Perception and Experience of Young Poets. Part II: The Role of Young Poets’ Needs and Personality Traits as Determinants of Their Creative Activity

This paper deals with the role of needs and specific personality dimensions as determinants of creative (poetic) activity among youth. The study is based on Henry A. Murray and Morris I. Stein’s theory, according to which needs represent forces for action and are classified by the psychologists into primary (viscerogenic) and secondary (psychogenic) ones, or explicit and implicit (hidden) needs. An instrument called Stein’s Self-Portrait (also known as “The Needs and aspirations”) was used to investigate Murray’s system of needs. The structure of personality was measured using the Five Factor Model of Personality (also known as the “Big Five Model”) devised by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae. The model describes five fundamental dimensions (factors) of personality such as: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. Analysis of the study results reveals a specific hierarchy of needs ( the prevailing ones include creative needs, social needs, the need to seek and enjoy sensuous impressions, the need for achievement and the need for compensation), as well as points to the dominating personality dimensions which correlate with creative activity (openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness).